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Day 3 of August ODP Elephant Plains Photographic Safari 2

Posted by on in Elephant Plains
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Today once again our safari got off to a lovely start with great weather and some beautiful sunshine. We managed to find the female leopard Salayexe and spent some great time with her, firstly watching her stalking a small herd of Nyala, but they soon got her wind and dashed off. She then gave us some great photographic opportunities and a number of walk  bys before she dropped down in to the Manyaleti drainage line and we were unable to follow her.

Our afternoon safari got off to a slow start, we ended up at a small dam where we had a lot of fun shooting the resident hippo as he put on a display for us, as well as the couple of hammerkops that were flying around.

Photo by Hilton Kotze

Once the light got really good we decided to go take our chances and look around in the area where Karulas cubs were last seen. We were very fortunate to find the young female fairly quickly lying on a fallen down tree with a lovely blue back ground behind her, being more relaxed the her brother and litter mate, she just lay there with now concern for our presence which made for an even better shoot. Between the 2 vehicles we shot in the region of 150gigs worth of images of her. This sighting was certainly one of the highlights of the safari.

Looking forward to the last few drives, be sure to keep an eye out for more updates from ODP hosts Brendon and Hilton on safari at Elephant plains.

 

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Brendon was born and raised in Zimbabwe. He was exposed to wildlife and the outdoors form a young age, he could hardly be kept in doors, nature already had a big place in his heart and life. Brendon went to school a Peter House in Zimbabwe, where he built on his passion for nature, he was involved in and eventually headed up the Falconry club as well as being very much involved in the conservation and research of the school own game reserve. Brendon work in the kariba area and in matusadona national park during his school holidays, building on his knowledge of wildlife.



After Brendon completed his school he went to work in matusadona national park where he studied all aspects of wildlife and the African bush, from plants to insects, birds and mammals. After completing his apprenticeship and becoming a professional guide Brendon worked for a company that conducted walking trails in the matusadona national park, tracking and stalking big game and learning animal behaviour was a big aspect of his day to day activities. After spending a few years guiding in some well known areas and reserves in Zimbabwe such as mana pools national park, lower Zambezi and hwange national park as well as in Zambia and Botswana, Brendon eventually settled in Victoria falls where he worked in the kazangula area along the Upper Zambezi and in chobe national park, conducting big game walking trails as well as birding and fishing safaris. It was here that Brendon started his photographic obsession, never wasting any opportunity to be out photographing



On the onset of political strife and the collapse of the Zimbabwean economy Brendon returned to his families native land South Africa. Here he met his lovely wife Michelle. Brendon and his wife went to work as a Lodge managers in the world renowned sabi sand game reserve, Brendon spent 4 years in the game reserve capturing on camera everything the reserve has to offer, but paid special and close attention to the big cats of the reserve, Brendon has an extensive knowledge and understanding of big cats, their habits, and habitats and is one of Brendon's big passions.



Today Brendon is an adventurer, conservationist, tour leader and wildlife photographer, based in Nelspruit. As well as hosting photographic safaris for ODP, Brendon offers photographic workshops in Nelspruit and personalized photographic tuition. Brendon's photography has been published in a number of prestigious outdoor and wildlife magazines.

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Guest Saturday, 25 May 2013